


PARADISE

by sidnihoudini



Category: Pop Music RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-30 00:21:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not exactly Fine, fine, but she's working on it.  Her therapist is now laughing at her bad jokes instead of looking sadly at her, and Laura Lynn doesn't sound quite so stilted when they talk on the phone anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	PARADISE

_I belonged to no one; who belonged to everyone._

~

Jason leaves her. For two weeks everybody is on eggshells, unsure of whether or not the status of her potentially impending breakdown should be brought up or not.

One Sunday they're all in her kitchen -- her dad, Larry, the boys, with Britney balanced on one of the bar stools pushed up to the kitchen island. Sean is dragging alphabet letter magnets across the bottom half of the fridge, Larry is on his Blackberry, and Jamie is fussing over something in the sink.

"Would you all just fuckin' stop it?" She finally asks, though not unkindly, as she stretches one arm across the granite counter top. Jayden is sitting opposite her, a pack of Crayolas at his elbow, and a few sheets of computer paper under one forearm.

As he finishes the particular piece he's been working on, he pulls it up off of the counter and awkwardly places it into Britney's outstretched hand.

Larry pretends not to hear her, but Jamie whips around from the sink.

"What'dya mean?" He asks, obviously caught off guard by her question.

Raising her eyebrows at her dad, Britney flips Jayden's artwork over, and looks at the scribbes on front. Jayden's drawn their back yard -- the pool, a few trees, a rainbow cascading over the mountains -- and haphazardly signed his name at the bottom.

"Very nice, baby," She smiles, thumbing a blue cloud. "Thank you."

Jayden grins widely at her, reaching for his piece of artwork back.

"Welcome," He says, dropping down off of the stool. Britney watches him head over to where Sean Preston is with the magnets, and then glances back at Jamie without much of an expression on her face.

He raises his eyebrows, so she raises hers, too.

"Daddy," She says, now reaching for a pack of gum. "I'm fine."

*

She's not exactly Fine, fine, but she's working on it. Her therapist is now laughing at her bad jokes instead of looking sadly at her, and Laura Lynn doesn't sound quite so stilted when they talk on the phone anymore.

Britney watches herself in the bathroom mirror as she pulls her hair up into a haphazard bun, sitting big and uneven on her head. She needs botox, she thinks, tugging at the skin above her eyes. She frowns, and pulls her eyelids so her eyes look wider, younger.

She dislikes that people still feel sorry for her. That they ever felt sorry for her. 

Scowling, now, she drops her hands down to her sides, and turns her head slightly, studying her profile. She likes the sagginess in her face, the lines slowly creeping out from the corners of her eyes. 

They're like an insignia of sadness and all of the nights that have lead up until today.

And, for now, she likes it that way.


End file.
